Seven
by VKlepto
Summary: Sins aren't always deadly. Seven MMAD ficlets.
1. Avaritia

A/N: A short collection of ficlets with no cohesive storyline and a nonlinear timeline. There will be seven parts, each prompted by a sin, and all MMAD, but certainly you expect that of me by now...

* * *

Dark hair falls in waves, stark whilst juxtaposed against the summer green grass. The acid-bright sun highlights the young woman's cheekbones, the green of her eyes sharp behind the square glasses as she pores over a book, willowy fingers running along the words as another pair of hands run through her hair.

"I have a class to teach in an hour," she murmurs distractedly as his hands slip beneath the curtain of her hair and begin to caress the hidden skin of her neck. "I need to be prepared."

"Dear," says the man with auburn hair, who glints and glows like a flowerchild, as if growing brighter by photosynthesis. He parts her hair to one side and places a kiss on the ridge of her spine, "you are already more well-versed in Transfiguration than any person I have ever met."

"Albus..." she warns, reaching a hand back to swat absently at his leg as his lips continue their work, her eyes still fixed studiously on the book. Albus smiles, his lips against the skin of her neck, and he trails his mouth down to the top button of her dark robs where his fingers begin to play. She jumps immediately, wheeling around to face him, her glasses almost fallen from her nose, her expression incredulous.

"There are students about!" she hisses. His eyes twinkle.

"I'm having trouble letting go of summer, it seems."

"You'll have to make a more concentrated effort to move on." She retorts, patting his cheek in affectionate gruffness before returning to her book.

"Or I could cling to the final dredges of my favorite season," he responds after a few moments, and within the hour she is sprawled beneath him, eyes closed as his lips burn like sun-kiss against her skin, his hands exploring, worshipping, coveting-

She misses the first class of the year, blaming it on '_the foolishly decadent headmaster's monopoly on my time_.' Albus laughs at her wording, and she insists that he has no more control over his avaricious impulses than a child in a candy store; he pulls her close and pops a sweet into his mouth, leaving little room for disagreement.


	2. Gula

"You are _absurd_," she cries with such exasperation that he must contain his laugh, so as not to provoke her further. She stands at the end of his bed where he lays, her hands on her hips, her lips pulled into a tight line as though she is addressing a student and not an ailing headmaster. "You eat nothing but sweets and wonder why you're ill—"

"Poppy said that is was simply the change in season," Albus sniffs, inwardly amused at how _annoyed_ she appears with _his_ illness.

Were Minerva being honest, he does look ill. His eyes are rimmed in red, his skin is sallow, his nose is rosy, his voice sounds thick with congestion—she just can't bring herself to feel _too_ sorry for him when he takes so few precautions to look after his health. "Poppy is on your payroll, Dumbledore," Minerva snipes, her fingers tapping against her hips where they rest, eyes sweeping up and down his form, huddled beneath blankets.

"Still," Albus insists, "you should be coddling me. I should be receiving mugs of hot soup and sympathetic glances."

"I'll get right on that after I attend the meeting you're going to miss because you couldn't help—"

"_Minerva—_" he protests, but she plows forward.

"—eating your body weight in your holiday candy—"

"I certainly don't weigh that much!"

"—perhaps by then I'll have moved past irritated and encroach upon _concerned_."

He stares at her, and with his glasses resting on the table beside his bed, his eyes are more omniscient than usual, even in his weakened state, and she feels her lips twitch slightly. His lower lip protrudes in a silly play at pouting, and Minerva snorts, rolling her eyes and beginning toward the door.

"If that's all..."

"You are _truly_ going to allow me to languish away in these chambers? Alone? All day?" His clammy hand manages to capture her wrist as she passes by his bedside. "My dear, have you no heart?"

She opens her mouth to respond, and he can tell by the set of her eyebrows that she really is irritated with him, and so instead of allowing her to retort, he clenches his fingers around her wrist, and with every ounce of strength in his weakened body, pulls her onto the bed beside him.

"What in Merlin's name—!" she cries as she stumbles onto his comforter, limbs akimbo as she forcedly sprawls on top of and beside him.

"Filius can attend the meeting," Albus murmurs, pulling her closer as she struggles listlessly. "Your particular talents are far more necessary—" he pauses to sneeze "—here."

"What talents?" she asks, refusing to take the bait, determined to maintain her firmness with him. Recently he has appeared to be under the impression that he can charm whatever he wants from her. Whilst she is more often than not happy to give him whatever he desires, she wants to maintain at least the pretense that she is the fiery, obstinate demigod so many fancy her to be. Still, she can't help that her eyes soften when he curls around her like a small child with a teddy bear.

"Your uncanny inability to chase every unhappiness from my mind with your mere presence."

"I must have some presence."

"If by presence you mean—"

"_Albus!_"

"I apologize. The potion that Poppy gave me has made me rather groggy..." he trails off, inhaling deeply, his arms around her stomach, his head resting on her chest, nestling against her contentedly. She struggles a little, but in the end, her lips press against his hair, and she too drifts off to sleep.

* * *

"Erm, Headmaster? Minerva?"

The mediwitch's voice is a rude interruption, and Minerva stirs, opening one bleary eye to see Poppy wringing her hands at the foot of the bed. At first she wonders what Poppy is doing in her room, and then she realizes that it isn't her room, but Albus's—Albus who is still curled around her like a kitten—_oh dear_.

She nudges him roughly, her face suddenly very red as she clambers out from beneath him, straightening her hair and robes as he sits up blearily. To be seen in such an intimate position with her _boss_ is the height of impropriety—what Poppy must _think—_what she would be right in thinking, what no one can know—

"I—er—we—" Minerva stammers, quite unlike herself for a moment before she abruptly pulls together and begins to stomp out the door, as though blustering will distract Poppy from what is before her. "Albus, you really must not be such a _child_ when it comes to candy. One need not ingest ten chocolate bars in a row. _Honestly_." She storms out of the room then, too soon to hear Dumbledore's admission that his crux has always been gluttony, too soon to see the knowing curve to Poppy's lips.

* * *

Two days later, she is bed-ridden with the flu, and Albus stands over her, blue eyes glinting. "Candy, indeed."


	3. Invidia

_A/N: Thank you so much for the reviews - however, it would be nice if the twelve people who have this on alert would also review. Reviews make for a very happy and attentive writer. (; Also, I'm sorry for this somewhat intrusive agnst. I tried to avoid it, but... it seems that it's my natural state.  


* * *

_

"You know that I cannot."

"I know that you _won't_," Minerva corrects, her eyes leveling to his, her arms folded over her chest.

"Please do not do this to me," he pleads, rubbing his forehead with his hands, his head bowing so that his eyes are on his desk instead of her sternly composed face. "You know that this is not something that I want. It is something I am required to maintain."

"If you won't amend this, there are other aspects of your life you will find changed, and not necessarily to your liking."

He inhales sharply, peering up at her abruptly with his mouth open slightly. They have been more or less together for longer than either of them could in good conscience admit, but in all of that time, no one has known. No one _can_ know. Occasionally she prods him to make their relationship public, but usually he can talk her out of it - she has never threatened to end things before, and he feels apprehension turning his whole body cold. "Minerva..."

"No. I'm tired of this. I don't want marriage, I don't want children, I don't want notoriety, I don't want anything from you but an end to this secrecy." She still looks formidable, despite the apparent sentimentality of her words and he watches her closely. Her tongue is pressed to her cheek, he can tell - there is something she isn't telling him.

"And?"

"And I should like to be able to dispel my mother's idea that I have turned to an... _alternative lifestyle_." she replies tartly.

"And?"

"And..." she meets his probing gaze. Faced with a puzzle, the frustrated, stressed Dumbledore of moments before has gone; in his place sits a man who knows her too well for comfort.

"And this has nothing to do with the Ministry party last -"

"Of course not."

She responds too quickly. His eyes flash with realization, and she hugs her arms more tightly around herself as he approaches, as though she would defend herself.

"You know it meant nothing," he says, with the air of placating a child, placing his hands on her arms and meeting her angry gaze.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I am talking about Penelope Gladstone, the pretty young Prophet writer whose brown-nosing rivaled even your eleven-year-old self's abilities."

"I don't recall." It's obvious by the way she shifts her weight and looks down that she does. Her lip curls. "And no one rivals me."

He smiles feebly at how she is able to retain her sense of self, her sense of pride so cleanly, even when her emotions get the better of her; even whilst in the throws of what he now sees to be jealousy, Minerva McGonagall is still Minerva McGonagall. It's one of the things he loves most about her. "You know that I was not even remotely interested in Ms. Gladstone."

She arches a brow, eying him speculatively. He can see the words forming behind the stoic emerald of her eyes.

"You know that I have not been interested in any woman other than yourself for a nigh decade." She makes a low humming noise in her throat, which he takes as a sign to continue. His thumbs begin to trace small circles on her arms where his hands rest, and though she peers down accusingly at his fingers, she does not pull away. "There is no other for me, Minerva, but you. You needn't doubt it."

"She was flirting outrageously," Minerva says, almost conversationally, taking a step forward, closer to him, her eyes narrowed, but he senses that the danger has mostly dissipated.

"A bit, yes."

"She touched you after almost every word. She danced with you at least three times in a row. Merlin, Albus, if she had batted her eyelashes any more, her eyelids would have retired."

Albus snorts. He leans in as though he would kiss her, but she pulls slightly away and continues.

"But do you know what the worst part was?" she asks, leaning in again, her nose grazing the space above his lips. He leans toward her once more, but she remains enigmatically out of his reach, her breath against his lips but nothing more.

"What?" he asks, his voice a little hoarse, feeling her body press tentatively against his own. He realizes, dimly, that - like himself - Minerva rarely acts without purpose. In some corner of his mind he knows that the softening he sensed moments before didn't occur, but as always, she intoxicates him, renders him incapable of doing anything but stare at her frowning lips, so close to his own.

"I couldn't do anything about it." She pushes him away, disentangling herself from him, and turning toward the door, leaving him blinking owlishly behind her, as though he has only just woken up.

"Minerva - I -" he stammers, briefly, but in a beat regains his composure, stopping her before she can leave with a hand around her wrist. "I belong to you and you alone. Isn't it good enough that you know it?"

"Sometimes," she answers cryptically, maneuvering her hand to give his a squeeze. "But not tonight."

She lets his hand go and strides out of the door, the swish of her robes bright green in the dark of the stairwell before she vanishes from view completely.


	4. Ira

_A/N: Thanks for the reviews, lovelies. I'm so sorry for the wait, and also semi-apologetic about this chapter- it veered very far from its intended course, and thus I don't know how I feel about it, but I guess it's your opinion that matters more, anyway, so, lemme know what you think... I may edit with improvements when I can think what to do with it, eep.  


* * *

_Albus Dumbledore is the greatest wizard of the age. No one dares duel him, even for fun—magazines often speculate that, had he and Merlin coexisted, Dumbledore may yet have come out on top. He oozes power. Even when he sits calmly behind his desk, his bright eyes are scintillating, jumping and dancing with a frenetic sort of energy that shimmers around him like an aura and lends to one the impression of motion even when he's not moving at all. When he's angry, even the Minister of Magic falls back, shrinking behind his chair, for there is none so godlike in anyone's memory than an impassioned Albus Dumbledore with his mane of auburn hair, his formidable height, his crooked nose, the luminescence of his eyes—no, there is no one who makes any attempt to do _anything_ when Albus Dumbledore is angry, for fear of the repercussions, though he has given no one reason to fear him at all. Irregardless, it is assumed that no one challenges Albus about anything.

Which is why Severus Snape is so startled when Minerva bursts through the door of Albus's office, her face aflame with anger. Dumbledore looks away from Snape and peers at her calmly, though Severus sinks somewhat into his chair; Dumbledore may be his master, but McGonagall may as well be his mother. No one quails him like she does.

"_Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore_," shouts Minerva, stomping further into the office and slamming the door behind her. "_Tell me that I have heard wrong."_

"Ahem," Dumbledore says, straightening his spectacles and sitting up a little straighter. "That depends what you have heard."

Minerva's eyes spark, and Snape stands slowly, slinking toward the door, "we can talk later, Headmaster, as you are otherwise occupied..." When Severus reaches the door, he looks back to see if Dumbledore has heard him, but instead is shocked to see Albus reaching very slowly for his wand, which sits to his left.

"Tell me," McGonagall seethes, "that Harry Potter is not competing in the Tri-Wizard tournament. Actually, you needn't tell me; I know you would not do that to one of our _children_."

"Well, you see..." Dumbledore hedges.

The next few events occur very quickly, and Snape, who is halfway out the door, is frozen by sheer shock.

Albus wraps his fingers around his wand, and there's a moment where it appears the legend of Dumbledore will hold true, that he will do something to keep her from flying off the handle, because almost as infamous—within the walls of Hogwarts, anyway—as Albus's omnipotence is Minerva's temper. But somehow her wand is drawn more quickly and even as the first syllable of a spell slips between his lips, she yells, "_expelliarmus_!"

And Dumbledore's wand goes flying against the wall as Minerva approaches him with the sure-footed steps of the huntress, a prowling cat, and Snape is struck by the absurd notion that Dumbledore is but the mouse being batted between her paws. The headmaster stands and lifts his hands, as though to fend her off as she closes on him, wand raised.

"Don't do anything rash, Minerva," Dumbledore warns. Although he sounds very serious, and it crosses Snape's mind as he lingers dumbly in the doorway that Dumbledore could definitely manage formidable magic without his wand, Severus gets the distinct impression that he does not want to fight her off. He senses surrender in the headmaster's stance, in the way he shrinks against the wall. At the same time, Minerva McGonagall is no lamb—she is a lion, though and through, and so Snape can't decide whether she has legitimately bested him, or if he just doesn't wish to fight her.

"That sounds awfully amusing, coming from you," she spits back, continuing toward him until he is pressed against the wall, her wand at his chest, her green eyes spitting flames. "You cannot continue to regard this boy's life so flippantly—merlin, Albus, he's just that! Just a _boy_, if it were anyone else..." sparks flit from the end of her wand, singing his robe. Snape jolts to life then; his loyalty is strung between the two of them like a banner. He owes it to the Headmaster to the end of his own salvation, and Minerva has simply earned his veneration—he can't have them blowing one another to bits. Striding toward them, Snape pauses to the side of them. He lifts a hand as though to physically interject, but thinks better of it.

"Professor McGonagall, I think it would be best were you to hand over your wand. Temporarily."

Minerva's hand flips so swiftly away from the headmaster and toward Snape that he has no time to react: he is flung backward against the wall, sending a few books tumbling to the ground.

"Exactly," Albus says sharply, suddenly intense. Magic jumps and jolts between them, as though they are contained in storm cloud.

"What?" she exclaims; static crackles in the deathly silence that fills in the spaces between their words.

"Headmaster, Professor, I think that—"

"_If he were anyone else_," Dumbledore repeats, his face darkening to that the typically twinkling blue of his eyes is swallowed by his pupil. "If he were anyone else, I should not have him do this. You are correct."

"You would endanger Potter, but not another student? You would—" the hand not burning her wand through his robes covers her mouth, and for one horrifying moment Snape thinks McGonagall will cry, but within a moment she has shaken it off. "You would endanger James and Lily's son, all that's left of them—"

"I know that you were close to the Potters, Minerva, but there are things larger than our personal feelings."

"_More important than his _life_, Albus?" _she veritably screams, and the sparking reaches a summit, drawing steam that rolls across Snape's shoes as he rolls to his feet, encircling the pair so thoroughly with what resembles tiny lightning bolts that they are obscured from view.

"Yes," Albus says, and his voice is very small.

Whatever is said next is missed by Snape—Dumbledore and McGonagall completely disappear from his view for several moments. When the crackling at last begins to descend in volume and the smoke begins to clear, Snape nervously approaches, unsure of what he will find.

When all is clear again, they are crouched on the floor, Minerva cradling Dumbledore's head against her chest, murmuring softly into his hair. Snape's mouth falls open, and Minerva finds his eyes over the headmaster's silvery head.

"Speak of this to no one, Severus." she says sharply, but the severity of her tone does not bely her exhaustion, nor the significance of the moment—that Snape witnesses this and is permitted to leave without any recompense is testament to the niche he has found here; though baffled and unsettled by the events of the evening, Severus leaves with a tremulous warmth within his chest, and for the first time a sense of his own beating, human heart thudding against his ribcage.


	5. Acedia

_A/N: I needed some fluff, okay? And, um, I have no actual excuse for this..._

Sprawled out on the extraordinarily large bed in the center of the headmaster's quarters, she suddenly has a feeling of... decadence, were one able to emote such. The comforter, long since slunk to the floor, is a sumptuous, pearlescent white threaded with gold so that, in the flickering firelight, it seems to simply glow. The wood of the furniture is deep and rich, and the pillows that lay scattered around the bed are a warm red that takes on the glow of the hearth; she stretches her hands above her head, her back arching in a catlike manner as a contented smile takes over her features. _This_, she thinks as she hears the door click open and closed, _is what Niviane would have felt like were she a smarter lass._

"Good morning, my dear," Dumbledore says as he enters the room, his robe a scintillating purple. Usually such bright colors would be ill-advised on someone so pallidly colored as he; his brightest features, now that his hair has faded to a grizzled russet, are his eyes. The purple ought to, logically, compete with them. But no, there they are—bright, winking, overwhelming as they fall on her, a smile crinkling them at the corners before it reaches his lips.

"Mm," she purrs in response, turning on her side to face him.

"Though I do hate to say so, you ought to be heading back to your rooms."

"Must I?"

"The gossip would be most untoward. I should hate anything to sully your thus far spotless reputation."

"I am young, you know. People expect me to have..." she pauses, and moves toward him as he sits on the edge of the bed, "indiscretions."

"Ah," he responds with a raise of his brows as she slinks upward to place a kiss on his the corner of his mouth. "Alas, I am old. People expect me to do only right."

"No," Minerva exclaims in mock horror. He has noticed a distinct change in her personality since they moved to a higher level of intimacy; she is much less restrained around him, much less wont to present him with the strict facade she shows most of the world. She reminds her much of her animagus form, especially in this early, post-coital hours—stretched out, barely clothed, her fair skin reflecting the firelight; her hair unpinned and dark, coiling across her chest and tangling about her shoulders; her eyes, hooded with fatigue and content, green and narrow; her lips curved, as a kitten who had drank the milk; her motions languid, relaxed, fluid... she enraptures him as no human ever has, and though she is only at Hogwarts for the semester to act as a teaching assistant to the Transfiguration Professor, although she is decades too young and all too temporary, he cannot help himself. Even when she was a student thoughts too often crossed his mind that shouldn't have existed at all—now she is three years graduated, still too young, but more learned of the world that he doesn't feel as though he's doing her an injustice. "They expect you to do _right_?"

"Oh, yes, dear. And do good as well."

"Good!" she exclaims, placing a hand on his shoulder and resting her chin on her hand. "My, my," she murmurs as he places his hand on her bare knee. One brow arches in reaction, though she sidles nearer to him as she shrewdly says, "they must not know you as well as I."

"Am I not good?" he asks quietly, his voice a low rumble as he leans forward to place a kiss on her forehead.

"No, Professor," she whispers so that he must lean forward to hear her. "I think you're _quite_ bad. Which isn't to say that I particularly mind..."

He chuckles and squeezes her knee, but abruptly the contact is withdrawn and he stands. "Really, though, Minerva, breakfast is in twenty minutes and it will be highly suspicious if neither of us attends."

She sighs and lays back on the bed. She has it entirely in her mind to make herself go back to her rented quarters, and is about to relent when she catches his eyes on her, watching her fingers where they drum against her stomach. A wicked smile curves her thin lips. "I don't think I'm feeling up to breakfast." she says abruptly, the drumming fingers slowing into an apparently absentminded caress of her own skin that crawls downward so very slowly that it could nearly be unconscious—his eyes follow her hands.

"My darling..."

She feigns a cough. "I'm ill, Albus."

"Indeed."

"I haven't missed a day of class to date—I'm allowed three sick days, as per your stipulations..."

"Certainly you can't spend your day off sleeping in _my_ bed."

"I can if you stay with me."

"Do not tempt me, love." Her hand inches downward, and his eyes find hers quickly with a mixture of surprise, reproach, and something much hazier and harder to identify as her fingers find the edge of her nightclothes. His gaze inevitably drifts to her underwear, which is draped over one bedpost; her hand continues to vanish beneath her clothing.

It takes all of four seconds for his resolve to break and him to be upon her, grabbing her rogue hand and covering it with his own. Her eyes flutter, her smile growing smug. "It would be dreadfully poor form for the headmaster to lay about out day..." he murmurs, even though he knows he has already surrendered as he brings her hand to his lips and draws one of her fingers into his mouth.

She makes a sound not dissimilar to purring before responding, "sloth is hardly the worst of your sins at the moment, Albus."

His chuckle rolls pleasantly through her as he leans down to kiss her, but not before adding, "and whose fault is that?"


End file.
